This invention pertains to a double-sigmoid connector, which has particular utility to interconnect structural members in a trusswork, as in an offshore drilling platform. The connector of this invention may be made and used as a pressure-tight fitting.
In a trusswork made of structural piping of circular cross-section, serious difficulties have been encountered when various pipes must be welded together to form a four-way interconnection, in which respective ends of four pipes must be welded together. In an offshore drilling platform, as a very significant example, many interconnections respectively comprising four angularly extending pipes of 48-inch outer diameter may be encountered.
In prior practices, the ends of the pipes often were cut into complex curvatures so as to permit the ends of the pipes to be welded together with complex failure-prone weldments to form each multi-way interconnection as noted above. These practices have been costly and difficult and have left a need for improved connectors enabling such multi-way interconnections of structural members in a trusswork to be made, less expensively and more easily, with simpler more reliable weldments.